Views » February 28, 2012

Paula Deen: This Little Piggy Went to Market

The only way Americans can have their (battered, deep-fried) cake and eat it too is to take drugs, forever. It's a big-pharma wet dream.

Host of a gross $10 million food empire, Paula Deen gives fat people a bad name. The queen of Southern cuisine recently announced (on TV, of course), that she had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Three years ago.

Last August – when she knew about, but hadn’t acknowledged, her diet-linked disease – the Food Network personality told the New York Post: “I wake up every morning happy for where I am in life. It’s not all about the cooking, but the fact that I can contribute by using my influence to help people all over the country.”

What she helps them to is sickening food. Deen gleefully and lucratively promotes a diet that would make a marathon runner fat. Unlike cancers triggered by environmental toxins or asthma exacerbated by polluted air, Type 2 diabetes is largely a lifestyle disease. A bad diet and overweightness are key factors in creating America’s 26 million diabetics – and making them more dependent on drugs. The country’s 79 million prediabetics are heading toward a lifelong life-threatening condition that is now nearly four times as common as all forms of cancer combined.

Deen’s explanation of why she waited three years before going public was harder to swallow than her signature donut burger: “I wanted to wait until I had something to bring to the table,” she told the Post. “I wasn’t armed with enough knowledge.”

But ameliorating Type 2 diabetes is not rocket science; it’s not even bicycle repair. A more palatable explanation: Deen wanted to wait until she had negotiated a multi-million dollar deal with drug giant Novo Nordisk to become a paid spokesperson for Victoza, a $500-a-month injectable diabetes drug.

Deen, who says she doesn’t own a scale, boasts: “I’ve always preached moderation. I don’t blame myself.” Indulge, if you can stomach it, in moderation à la Deen:

– Mac and cheese doped with sour cream and eggs, wrapped in bacon and deep fried.

– Fudge “made from one of our four food groups: cheese,” she chuckled on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, while mixing sugar, cocoa, Velveeta and butter to form a fist-sized lollipop, which she then dipped in caramel and white chocolate, and rolled in nuts.

– And lest you think she neglects fruits and veggies: A battered, deep-fried pumpkin layer cake with cream cheese and orange frosting.

The American Diabetes Association – which lists Novo Nordisk among its top corporate sponsors, along with Merck, Lilly and other drug and food companies – downplays the role of diet. “You can’t eat your way to diabetes,” the organization’s director of education told The New York Times. Which is like saying you can’t smoke your way to lung cancer. Yes, there are genetic and other factors, but the overwhelming predictor of Type 2 diabetes is being overweight.

Obesity, one of the few health conditions that can still be ridiculed with impunity, is a serious, intractable problem. But Deen’s recipes are a sugar-coated invitation to heaviness and increased risk of diabetes, both of which disproportionately affect lower-income people and some minorities.

The only way for Deen and America to have their (battered, deep-fried) cake and eat it too is to take drugs, forever – making Type 2 diabetes a big-pharma wet dream since its victims can live long, heavily medicated lives. The drug industry, abetted by many doctors, not only pathologizes normal life experiences like menopause or grief after a loved one’s death and prescribes pharmaceutical “cures,” it also promotes drugs as the first intervention in conditions such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes, which can often be prevented or controlled by changing the lifestyle that underlies the illness.

In the three years Deen was negotiating how to profit from her partially self-inflicted disease, in the United States alone, the direct and indirect costs of diabetes topped $640 billion, almost 6 million adults were newly diagnosed, about 200,000 lost a limb and 700,000 died from a disease that can be more than halved through lifestyle changes.

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GirlFriend Status - Relationship StatusPosted by harry potter on 2012-03-22 05:55:30

First rate article, Ms. Allen. Nowhere near enough has been written on this subject. Here she is making millions off encouraging a terrible lifestyle, and virtualy no one is holding her to account. Well done, and thank you very much.Posted by Kerry Badgley on 2012-03-13 02:28:06

I was actually pretty offended by this article. Sure, Type II Diabetes is a problem, but it's not caused by Paula Deen's show or her lucrative drug deal. You can in fact eat your way to type 2 diabetes if you already have risk factors-and you can get a long way back to health by changing your diet and exercising.
Having some fried butter once in a while isn't going to kill you. I don't think it's Paula Deen's job to tell people what to eat. She's just a celebrity cook, famous for fatty, heavy, ridiculous recipes. Fat doesn't necessarily make you fat- but eating processed junk every day and guzzling soda will make you incredibly unhealthy regardless of weight. Avoiding diabetes is something I have a vested interest in considering my family history, and I avoid it handily not by reducing my intake of fat or even sugar-I do it by *adding* dark green vegetables to my diet every day. It's an endocrinology trick that helps avoid blood sugar spikes. Keeping my diet focused on things that resemble something that once grew in the ground or walked the earth allows me to indulge when I feel like it.
That's what a "balanced" diet really means. And it's true that Big Pharma makes zillions of dollars off of diabetes; they make zillions of dollars off of everything. It's a messed up system and I hope I see a change in my lifetime.
I'm so tired of health concerns being an excuse to be the Body Police. Nor is it any reason to be some sort of Food Puritan, raining judgement down on all who subsist on anything less worthy than macrobiotic chard.
"Piggy"? Totally uncalled for.Posted by M Dewalt on 2012-03-11 16:32:02

Ms. Allen, you have hit dead on two subjects that drive me crazy. First of all, some people CAN eat their way out of diabetes. My husband was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and his doctor told him he was on the edge of an abyss and to step away. In three months, he lost 40 pounds, brought his blood sugar levels under control and saw his symptoms start to disappear, all by changes in his diet. (See "Fending Off Diabetes" at http://thepoliticali.blogspot.com/2012/01/fending-off-diabetes.html) Paula Deen's efforts to continue raking in the dough, so to speak, while she figured out how she and her son could profit from her disease is shameful. Three years of having knowledge and still promoting such poisonous food is a long time!
The other issue is using medication as a first resort instead of a last one, and using it to medicalize situations that don't need to be in the realm of medicine, but make excessive profits for the drug companies and those who promote them. Excuse me, but I just have to post another link to my own thoughts on the subject: "Life: The Ultimate Disease" at http://thepoliticali.blogspot.com/2012/01/life-ultimate-disease.html.
Thank you for your article. Too little has been written about these subjects, both of which really torque me off--and now I'm done! Posted by Deborah Montesano on 2012-02-29 01:41:34

Mr. Allen, This is such a great website, and I discovered it only recently. I read this article, and I reacted with dismay. As a "senior editor", you have influence, as well as responsibility.
Please take a close look at what you are saying. This is hate speech, and certainly should have no place in intelligent and compassionate discourse.
Ms. Dean has certainly promoted a horrendous style of cooking and eating. She is a sick woman, and most likely has an eating disorder. Ms. Dean is losing some weight.
Unfortunately, although Dean can lose some weight, you may never recognize nor lose the venom pouring from your heart. How would you treat a sick friend? Please take a look at yourself. Posted by judy coleman on 2012-02-28 16:40:22